


Excuses

by lonelywalker



Category: Charlie Bartlett (2007)
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:08:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie only ever has sex with Susan's father when it doesn't count.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excuses

Charlie only ever has sex with Susan's father when it doesn't count.

He's learned a lot about excuses from his parents. There definitely are times when a person should just stand up like a man (or, well, a woman) and take responsibility for his (or her) actions, and accept the consequences. Sure there are. It's just that the first time wasn't one of them, and every other time since has been pretty much a result of that. It's fruit of the poisoned tree. It's inadmissible. It's just not even worth considering, honestly.

I mean, look.

The first time, Charlie has a concussion and Susan's father – Principal Gardner – is drunk, and they're both in the shower together, because that's the fastest way to get ready for a play when you're soaking wet and drunk and/or concussed and _really_ need to make it there on time.

Charlie is quite pleased that they'd managed to figure all of that out, possibly-cracked skull and insanely high blood alcohol level aside. He's so pleased that he takes the way Nathan (Principal Gardner, but it would soon be Nathan anyway) eyes up his naked body as a compliment, and asks him to pass the shampoo.

The thing is…

The thing is, Nathan is really far too good-looking to be a high school principal. Charlie had thought that the first time they'd ever met. High school principals are not supposed to be attractive to any other form of life on the planet. It had obviously been a mistake. Nathan was surely _fated_ to be a rugged jazz musician, or at the very least the kind of history professor who could legitimately make his teenage students swoon.

Charlie only realizes that he's said any of that – and possibly all of it – out loud when he finds himself wondering why he usually hates alcohol, but is really quite attracted to the taste of it on Nathan's lips.

Funny, that.

And it isn't wrong at all, really. It's not even wrong in the ways Nathan might get worried about when he's sober. Charlie's seventeen. Isn't that a great age? Seventeen! Completely legal fodder for whatever gets Nathan off, providing he consents, of course, and the currently enthusiastic size of his erection indicates that consent might not be a very lengthy negotiation.

Also – and this is a pretty cool also – Nathan's been fired. He's no longer an authority figure in Charlie's life at all. There's no way he's being improper. No way anyone can say Charlie's kissing him, touching him, stroking him just for better grades or to get out of detention. Really Nathan's just Susan's Dad, and, okay, they both love and/or really like Susan, but stuff happens. Maybe she'll be cool with it. Maybe she'll decide she's a lesbian. Maybe she'll throw things and never talk to either one of them again.

"She's not talking to me anyway," Nathan points out, his fingers tangled in Charlie's hair.

So there. Everything is completely covered, except that Charlie is figuring out just how hard and big and needy Nathan is – and that's after practically inhaling a whole bottle of Scotch. The shower is taking far longer than necessary, and they're both clean, _beyond_ clean, so clean they're going to come out of this with wrinkled fingers, and Nathan's hand is around Charlie's cock, and Charlie's going to come hugely, embarrassingly quickly.

Which might not be a bad thing, given that the play started five minutes ago and they're still busy jacking each other off in the shower. Anyway, Charlie's read it through fifty times. He can give Nathan the précis in the car on the ride over, and thank god neither of them have to drive. Nathan comes over Charlie's hand, clinging to him just to stay upright, and Charlie sees stars.

The second time…

The second time is on the edge of the pool, when Nathan's completely sober, and Charlie's head has finally stopped feeling as if it might split apart. It really should be one of those awkward encounters where they agree to never, ever mention what had happened between them, and Charlie rides off into the sunset with Susan. But Susan's not home, and they fix the model boat, and make out for an unbelievably long time (if you can make out with a guy who must be on the wrong side of forty) before Nathan gives Charlie the first, best, mind-blowing blowjob of his young life.

The third time is, rather wetly, on Nathan's bed. And the fourth and fifth times are pretty much like that, too, except that Susan hears/sees/screams at them the fifth time, and that whole crisis takes about a month to set straight. By the sixth time, which is obviously just a result of having been thrown together by mutual trauma, Charlie's introduced Nathan to his mother as his lover (she seems to have forgotten ever meeting him when he was the principal), and they have long, sweet, leisurely sex in his own bed.

It still doesn't count.

I mean, how could it? Seventeen year old boys do not go around screwing high school principals even if, after the summer, Charlie is eighteen and Nathan's just a regular old history teacher, and Susan's pretty much head over heels with Kit, who's writing a new play just for her. It's a relationship that stems from whiskey and a head injury and a failed suicide attempt and a whole _year_ of…

"Are you talking to yourself again?"

Charlie waves his, by now, rather weighty journal in the direction of the door. His psychiatrist had asked him to keep it, even though the majority of his (largely fictional) psychological ailments had been very successfully cured. You can just never tell when an apparently well-adjusted patient might have a relapse and do something absolutely, certifiably crazy like…

Well, no. The journal lands with a thud on the floor as Charlie finishes setting his alarm clock, and drags Nathan – twice his size, twice his age, and not objecting one whit – beneath the covers. With everything he's done in the past year, forging IDs, dealing drugs, jacking off his girlfriend's father in the shower, there isn't much even _he_ can think of that might even approach that level of craziness.

"Charlie?"

"Mm?"

"Shut up."

And this time?

Yeah, this time _definitely_ counts.


End file.
